Before taking his turn in the fifth round of penalty kicks, the goal of Millburn's Ben Flaum was to channel out all the noise around him. Then with a swift swing of the right foot he silenced what had been a vocal home crowd.

Flaum's goal into the upper right corner capped off a stunning comeback as Millburn, No. 7 in The Star-Ledger Top 20, advanced past No. 1 Scotch Plains in penalty kicks by a 5-4 margin in the semifinals of the North Jersey, Section 2, Group 4 semifinals yesterday in Scotch Plains.

"When I walked up there I knew if we make it we win. I'm supposed to make it because that's one of my specialties," Flaum said. "I just had to get everything out my head. All the fans were cheering, I had to zone it out, not listen to anything, put it in the spot and that's what I did."

"Once we went into PKs we were all very confident," Langendorff said. "We have five great PK kickers."

Langendorff got things started for Millburn (16-3-2) when he made a kick save on Scotch Plains' Andrew Leischner. The Essex County school followed with consecutive goals from Spenser Heller, Nick Politan, Kirk Wilens, Rohan Sood and Flaum.

Millburn may have been calm and collected during penalty kicks, but were rattled early in the game as Scotch Plains (19-1-3) was dominant at the start. Scotch Plains broke through in the 11th minute as Langendorff saved a Christian Zazzali header, but Colin Stripling was there to head in the rebound.

Leischner then made it 2-0 in the 30th minute when he buried home a cross from Jassiem Wahtuse.

"We were kind of panicked and we weren't used to playing with a team as good offensively as Scotch Plains," Langendorff said. "They're a great team. Finally as we got into the half, we settled down, started to posses the ball, played our game both defensively and offensively."

John Muller put Millburn on the board with a goal from 25 yards out in the 32nd minute.

Millburn forced overtime with 1:55 left in regulation when Lucas Weissman sent a corner kick into a crowd in front of the net and Politan headed it to Muller for his second goal of the game.

"We have nobody to blame, but ourselves," Scotch Plains coach Tom Breznitsky said. "To have a 2-0 lead and to allow them to get back in the game was unforgivable on our part. I think we are a good enough team to hold on to a 2-0 lead."

Twenty seconds into overtime, Stripling was robbed on a header in front of the net when Langendorff punched the shot into the air and caught it on the ground before it could land into the net.

It was the last of nine saves made by Langendorff. Scotch Plains' Dan Korduba had five saves.